"They did take eight young colored men and boys along with them, in spite of their parents pleading. I fear we will never see them again, unless they can escape." So wrote Chambersburg businessman William Heyser on October 15, 1862, four days after General J.E.B. Stuart raided Chambersburg with a cavalry force of 1,800 Confederate troopers. Stuart's men took hundreds of horses and more than 500 guns, and destroyed $250,000 of railroad property. The raid, however, would prove easy on the citizens of Chambersburg compared to the losses they would suffer when the Confederates returned in the summers of 1863 and 1864.
